How to make a Victorian smoking bishop

Made with port, roasted oranges and/or lemons, sugar and spices, this is an easy-to-make historical take on mulled wine that was associated with Christmas in the Victorian period. It also features in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. When the old miser Scrooge has his pivotal change of heart, he tells his clerk: “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year!... we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!”

Replace the port with claret wine and you’ve got a smoking archbishop

The recipe to the left is based on English food writer Eliza Acton’s 1845 version. The drink is probably described as ‘smoking’ because of the steam that rises from it.
A whole host of drinks made with wine were known as ‘ecclesiastics’, and were named after orders within the Catholic church – perhaps because of the mitre-like shape of the glass in which they were served, though in truth we don’t know for sure why this name stuck.